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The do-not-call list is not perfect, but it helps reduce the number of telemarketing calls you receive. Legitimate telemarketers will respect it — which meant that the ones who continue to call your listed numbers are breaking the law, and you should have no hesitation in just hanging up on them.

Kansans with their landline telephones on the no-call list have had improved privacy for more than a decade, and our office has helped protect that privacy by vigorously enforcing the No-Call Act. Last year alone, we obtained judgments against 16 telemarketers who violated the No-Call Act with total penalties of $3.4 million.

Until now, the Kansas No-Call Act has worked only for landline residential telephones. Sure, it was possible to register your cellphone number on the do-not-call list, but under the law, there were no consequences if a telemarketer called your cellphone anyway because the law only applied to landlines.

Because of that loophole in the law, our office had to tell 161 Kansans, who filed no-call complaints with us last year, that we could not help because the number called by a telemarketer was a cellphone, not a landline.

Now, all that is changing.

This year, legislature expanded the protections of the No-Call Act to cover cellphones. The response was tremendous — unanimous passage of the legislation in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Starting July 1, if a telemarketer calls your cellphone number that is on the no-call list, we can bring an enforcement action (unless, of course, one of the exceptions in the law applies.)

This common-sense change makes sure the law keeps up with changing technology and changing consumer preferences. After all, far more people use cellphones now than in 2002 when the Kansas No-Call Act first became law.

So register your personal cellphone number on the do-not-call list. It’s simple. Just go to www.inyourcornerkansas.org and click on the “Register for the Do Not Call List” button or call (888) 382-1222.